


The Candle Thing

by eraofstories



Series: Era's Festival of Lights Fest 2020 fics [8]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Hanukkah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:48:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28144134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eraofstories/pseuds/eraofstories
Summary: Spot wants to talk to David after a union meeting, and has a surprise for him.
Relationships: Spot Conlon & David Jacobs
Series: Era's Festival of Lights Fest 2020 fics [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2051151
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12
Collections: Festival of Lights Fest





	The Candle Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Tonight's prompt was "Different people but all one nation" which I interpreted...let's say 'loosely.' Instead of being about different Jews it's more about the newsies deciding that Davey is one of them.

“Hey, hey! Walking Mouth! Davey!” David started and turned, surprised to hear a voice calling after him as he and Jack headed out of the union meeting. 

He tried to avoid making a face as he turned to meet Spot who had apparently been ready to chase after him. He wanted to get home, was hoping to make it back before the candles burned out, even though he was sure they’d have been lit before he made it back, judging by how low in the sky the sun already was. “Yeah, Spot, what d’you need?” 

“It’s that holiday right? The one with the candles and stuff? And you’re Jewish right?” Spot looked shifty, and David was glad that Jack was with him, feeling suddenly a lot less certain about where this was going. That seemed like an unlikely lead-in to any kind of union talk. It seemed, if he was being honest, more like a lead in to the kind of ‘talk’ he’d spent a lot of time at school trying to avoid from other boys, ones who weren’t Jewish and wanted to be very sure you knew it, with their fists if possible. 

“I, uh, yes?” David hoped very much that he didn’t look as anxious as he felt, thinking of the fights he’d seen Spot win. For all that David had more than six inches on the other boy he was extremely confident that Spot could win any fight between the two of them. He felt Jack move up to stand close behind him, and felt a little better at the reminder that he wasn’t alone. 

“You don’t gotta look so scared, Mouth,” Spot said, rolling his eyes, “and Jackie you can calm down already, don’t go around posturing like you don’t know I could take you, easy.” Jack huffed a bit, and David made a mental note not to let Jack draw him into any discussions about whether Spot could in fact beat him in a fight, since Jack had a knack for knowing when David was lying, and David was very confident that Spot would, in fact, come out the victor in such an event. “The Brooklyn guys wanted to get you something for Christmas, on account of how much you helped us all out this summer, and then Hotshot said that you wouldn’t celebrate that, so we had to do it for the candle thing instead.” 

David blinked. “Uh. Thank you? You don’t need to?” 

Spot rolled his eyes again. “Don’t be dumb about it, you did us a solid, and you’re a decent guy and all that, and the guys get bored in the evenings, so some of them learned to do these little hook things with string, and then Hotshot said that you guys, Jews, I mean, wear little hats? Like, under your normal hats I guess?” Now Spot was beginning to look confused, and a little worried. “You uh, you do wear the little hats right? Hotshot wasn’t making that up?” 

David blinked again, before realizing that he was being called upon to respond. “No, uh, we do wear the little hats. I mean, they’re called yarmulkes, but yeah. Hats!” It seemed deeply unfair that people could just start talking about things that you didn’t expect them to know much about, and you were supposed to be able to respond like  _ Spot Conlon, King of Brooklyn _ wasn’t the one asking you about your little Jewish hats. 

Spot looked relieved, which was, honestly, not a great look on him, and stuck a hand into his pocket, pulling out a little brown paper bag. “Oh, good. The guys would’ve been real mad if I’d had to bring these back after they did all that work on them. I don’t know if you need so many, but they got excited about it.” 

David had a pretty good idea what he was going to find in the bag, but also his theory seemed so ridiculous that he was still a little surprised to find about ten yarmulkes, in a variety of colors of yarn inside, many of them clearly cobbled together out of scraps of different yarns. “Thank you. These are lovely, and I’m sure Les will like them too.” Nothing about his life had prepared him for most of this situation, but Esther Jacobs had at least managed to drill some semblance of manners into her son, so this part was pretty easy to pull off.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t be weird about it Mouth. Happy candle thing, I’ll tell the boys you liked ‘em.” With that Spot turned on his heel and headed off into the growing darkness leaving David standing there staring after him for a second. 

“Chanukah!” he suddenly called, snapping out of his daze. “It’s called Chanukah!” Spot waved in acknowledgement, but didn’t turn around. 

David turned to look at Jack, who looked about as mystified as David felt. Jack shrugged at him, and said, “Well, I guess it just goes to show, once the newsies decides you’re one of them you can’t ever get free.” 


End file.
